Page 24 of Reflex

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PRESENT

You want it.You want it good.You want it hard.

Dirty filthy little fucker.

I want you to come in my hair.

Bend me over your knee.

Next time you should fuck me in the arse while I’m all trussed up.

It’s okay to want to feel something.

You did nothing wrong.

You’re gonna pay for it, you prime piece of shit.

Too many voices.Too many demands.They were all warring inside Spook’s skull, and there simply wasn’t room.Soon enough, the pressure would be enough to crack the bone.

Bones did crack so easily.

He wrapped his arms tight around his middle as pain flared out across his ribs and stole his breath.

“Bloody fuck,” a voice called from somewhere to the left of him.

Spook couldn’t see the speaker, though the voice was desperately familiar.Nor did he seem able to open his eyelids to confirm the speaker’s identity.It was as if the pressure in his head had caused his eyes to seal shut to prevent an explosion or something.

“Pull over.Pull over now.He’s about to puke.”The same request was made again in a couple of additional languages.

The car jerked to a stop, throwing them forward, before he was roughly dragged sideways by someone holding onto the top of his shirt sleeve.

“Move, dammit.Come on mate, little cooperation, unless you really want to spew over your own lap.”

That did indeed sound nasty.Spook allowed himself to be tugged across the car leather and into the open.

Being upright, though, that wasn’t such a good position.

Air; moist, and laden with salt, swaddled him in a refreshing embrace.Vision restored, the thick line of trees bordering the road came as a shock.He couldn’t smell any pine, no leaf litter, only a tingly, metallic-scented anathema.It filled his nostrils, his whole head.It stuck to his tongue, and wouldn’t come off even when he scraped his teeth against it.

Someone gathered his hair and tugged it.“Hey,” he began to protest, only to buckle at the waist as his intestines attempted to climb out of his throat.Steaming acrid foam splattered the tarmac before him and ran into the bordering scrub.His muscles protested the expulsion, cramping up so that it was impossible to move, though move he did as more acidic froth burned away the lining of his nostrils.

“And that’s why drinking on an empty stomach is a dumb idea,” Xane remarked, his grip still firm upon Spook’s long hair, keeping it clear of the projectile zone.

“Fuck off,” Spook mumbled, shaking his head, to pull himself free of the grip.He raised his arm to wipe his mouth.

“Not on my shirt,” Xane protested, and thrust a wad of presumably stolen ‘Acquario di Genova’ napkins into his visual field.“Have you any idea how much that cost?”

“Nah, and nor have you.”Even worse for wear he was aware of the vastness of Xane’s bank account.Spook dried his lips, before spitting his remaining stomach contents into the tissue and turning his head to seek somewhere to dispose of it.There was no litter bin to hand, so he dropped it over the smouldering pile of stench instead.

“None on your shirt,” he muttered proudly, side-stepping while still bowed in order to face his friend.“Nor on my lap, or shoes.”

He straightened, only for gravity to give him a downward nudge.He toppled sideways, bounced off Xane and landed on his backside, with his head against the rear wheel of the taxi.“Fuck, the sky’s heavy tonight.”

Xane peeled him off the tarmac.Literally tugged, so that he was pried away from the ground an inch at a time.“Nah,” he said, once he had Spook upright in his arms.“You’ve just jellified your limbs.I can’t remember the last time you got this wasted.The novelty is almost entertaining.”

“Not wasted enough.Can still hear them.”The voices were rumbling away in the background, not quite loud enough to hear clearly, but the whispers were like a constant hiss.